“The hippie was playing bingo with Aunt Jean at the Senior Center last night, late.”
Officer Farley gets ugly when he’s irritated, and he’s not all that nice to look at to begin with. He says, “It’s entirely possible that the fence at Martin’s was pushed down by the cattle themselves. Cows will do that. But the problem is that Mr. Martin seems to think that it has to do with people in town thinking his son is responsible for the Christmas parade shooting. You have any idea about where that rumor might have gotten started?”
I put my notepad at my side. “All I’ve done is ask questions.”
Officer Farley gets another cigarette out of his pocket and lights it. “Sometimes a question’s not a question. Like if you ask someone if they realize what a pain in the keister they are. You get me?”
“I get you.”
“Good. Now get.”
At school I am greeted by Addie talking nose to nose with Virgil in the hallway. “Did you hear?” says Addie.
“I just came from the police station.”
“Who would do something like that?”
“It could have just been cows getting out.”
“They’re a good family, KJ. With a good reputation.”
Virgil pats Addie’s shoulder. “Let’s go into class and sit down.”
Addie walks into the classroom ahead of us.
“What’s her problem?” I say. “She’s not even dating either one of them now.”
“She cares about people. Even people she’s not dating.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
Sure she does,
I think.
Especially when she has your shoulder to cry on. Give me a break.
“Should we try to write something about this? To be fair?”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“The Martins will shoot me if I go out there to interview them.”
“We could interview Addie,” he says.
“Oh, yes,” I say. “You can ask her her true feelings about it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” says Virgil.
“You’re the reporter.”
“No, you’re the reporter,” he says. “I’m the photographer.”
“Well, take some good pictures then. I’m sure Addie is very photogenic.”
I storm into the room and sit next to Sondra. Virgil sits next to Addie and Dennis. After Addie gets done telling the whole class about this monumental event of possible cow undoing, Addie commiserates some more with Virgil. Thankfully Sondra saves me by showing me the poem she’s been working on, “Valentine for the Bison.” She’s even done her own drawings.
“Do bison like valentines?” I say, still steaming. I’d like to give Addie a valentine right now.
“Don’t you see how lonely the bulls get in the winter? You can just see it in the way they hang their head in the snow.”
“Aren’t they just looking for food?”
“Yeah. But even the bison cannot live on grass alone. All animals long to be loved.”
“Mammalian defect,” I say.
“Yes,” says Sondra. “But viva the defect.”
We sit looking at her drawing. I correct some spelling on her poem and she lets me, without getting mad. Maybe I could be Sondra’s pet. She could teach me to sit, stay, and keep my mouth closed when I want to say territorial, female-dog kinds of things.
VALENTINE FOR THE BISON
By Sondra Bucknell
When winter fields are white as eggs
The buffalo bulls have chilly legs.
They stand and snort in desperation.
Their love lives are in depravation.
They miss their herd, who’ve gone away
Even if they will return someday.
So here’s a wish for all cold bison
Who stand in need of a liaison—
May spring come soon, with heifers hot.
Stay in the park, and don’t get shot.
SILHOUETTES
EVERYTHING IS WORSE at four in the morning.
I flip back and forth under my quilts. I have a guilt-and-jealousy stomachache. Curiously, drowning my sorrows in a bag of licorice and a quart of Mountain Dew the night before didn’t help as much as I thought it would.
Yesterday Virgil interviewed Addie at lunch, off in their own little corner. He barely spoke to me afterward. I’m sure she was the perfect injured heroine. And the whole school was still talking about how awful it was that “environmentalists” were on a “rampage.” Kenner didn’t come to school for the second day. Give me a break.
I went by the grocery store on the way home from school to check The List, for the referendum. The first page was completely full of signatures and they had added a second. I’ve heard that there are now “lists” in Red Lodge, Island Park, and Ennis. Last week Cody had a public meeting about the wolves that nearly ended in a punch-out.
When I started writing about wolves to get people more interested in them, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Of course this isn’t all happening because of a few articles in a school newspaper. Or because I’ve been talking to people about wolves or asking questions. I can’t take credit for Virgil getting shot or whatever really happened at the Martins’ ranch with their fence. I don’t know why other towns are getting riled up all of a sudden. Probably all this “taking sides” would have happened anyway. But the timing of the whole thing sure makes me feel like I threw a rock that’s part of an avalanche.
I waste an hour reading wolf reports online, and then I quietly take out my snowshoes and step into the thinning dark. Dad will be asleep until I get back. I walk past the thermometer on the porch. Ten below. Another balmy Saturday in West End.
I head north from town. I get on an old elk trail that I know will be quiet and snowmobile free. I pump my arms and legs. The frozen air hurts my chest. I breathe it back and cough it up. The snow is gray and deep. Before long my thighs and chest burn. I push gracelessly forward into the snow.
Except for my breathing the new snow has silenced everything, sucked the noise right out of the air. I want to let the voices in my head be absorbed into the snow, too. I want to be numb on the inside—like I was before I met Virgil, before I cared about wolves, before I tried to be anything but invisible. Before I thought I could be like a wolf.
I keep pushing into the snow until sweat beads up under my hat. I go harder. My chest hurts. I go harder. After a few minutes I feel light-headed. I slow down to let my chest recover. I see something gray flash in the trees. I stop moving. I push my heavy breath down in my throat. I tell myself it’s nothing. I see the flash again. It’s not a bear, it’s too fast. It’s too big to be a coyote. It seems more than unlikely, but I could swear it’s a wolf.
I tell myself to be logical. I just want it to be a wolf. It’s must be something else that has gray fur and runs like a giant graceful dog. I search the trees. Why is it here? The Nez Perce pack ranges around in the area, but they always keep far away from town. Maybe it’s alone and looking for a mate. Whatever it’s doing, if it doesn’t have a pack it’s in trouble.
I wait. Finally I breathe out, thinking it’s gone, and I see one more flash of gray. I run until I find its delicate tracks. I lift my snowshoes and run alongside the giant paw prints, careful not to cover them. I stumble along in the snow until I start to feel light-headed again. I stop and catch my breath and think about how far I am from town. I didn’t even tell my dad I was leaving. I take one last look around and head back, in a hurry.
All the way home I feel lit up and brilliant, and it’s not just because the sun is out of the trees. The reality of those tracks charges my muscles with energy. Whatever else is screwed up about my life, I love living in a place where accidents like this can happen.
But the other side of my brain eventually intrudes. Why do I care? Why is seeing an animal, any animal, important? It’s a wolf. So what? I can walk over and see a caged wolf at the Discovery Station any day of the week.
But seeing a wild wolf surviving in our shared habitat is different.
I walk home in the white emptiness. My breath is steady. I can’t wait to tell Virgil.
When I reach the edge of town I see both police trucks parked in front of Mr. Muir’s knife shop. This can’t be good. It’s early, but there’s a dozen people gathered around on the sidewalk. As I walk closer to the store I see red words scrawled on the glass facing the street but I can’t read them. I see Dad. He’s talking to Mr. Muir and to Officer Smith. He looks up and scowls hello. Mr. Muir nods at me, too, but without much interest.
Then I see Virgil. He’s taking pictures of the window. I look up at the red words but I have to read them a few times. It doesn’t make sense. Next to the words, the adjacent window has been bashed in. Snowdrifts have blown into the store and blended with the glass shards on the red carpet. I listen to Virgil’s camera click. In large ugly letters someone has written, “Wolf Faggot.”
Virgil walks up to me but doesn’t say anything.
“It’s like he’s daring us,” I say.
“We don’t know it’s Kenner,” Virgil says. “It could have been anyone who heard Kenner call me that. Or anyone that talks that way.”
“Come on,” I say in disgust. “Why do you want to protect him?”
Virgil says, “I don’t. People do what they are going to do. Like you.”
“What am I doing?”
Virgil puts his camera into his bag. He doesn’t look at me. For once I wait, not because I’m trying to give him time to explain, but because I’m too riled up to talk. He takes my arm and we walk over to the corner. The handful of people rubbernecking at the store now stare at us. I glare back until they stop.
Virgil speaks in a low tight voice. “Maybe to figure out who wrote this, we have to know why. You know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you think I care if those dicks call me names? Do you think I want you to get hurt sticking up for me?” he says. He’s talking quietly but because it’s Virgil it sounds like yelling.
Dad walks up to us. “Where have you been?”
“Snowshoeing,” I say. I’m not crazy about everyone yelling at me this morning. I’m not the one that wrecked the store.
“What if one of these whack jobs had found you walking around alone?”
“I’ve been shoeshoeing by myself a million times.”
“Well, there won’t be a million and one.”
I leave all the fun with Virgil and my dad to talk to Mr. Muir. He has bed head and razor stubble. I say, “I’m sorry.”
He nods. “Insurance will cover some of it, but you never get it all back.”
“Do you think . . . did they steal anything?”
“No.” He looks past me into the store. “I like wolves. So what? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think this is about making sense.”
“What’s a wolf faggot, anyway?”
“I’ve heard the term.” Virgil’s words stop me from saying more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty about it. This store is Mr. Muir’s livelihood. Teaching school is just a public service.
“If somebody doesn’t like my opinion on wolves they can just tell me. Whatever happened to civil discourse?”
“Civil discourse?” How can a man who sells knives talk like a philosophy professor? “Do people do that anymore?”
Mr. Muir rubs the end of his face like he’s taken a punch. “Well, it beats bashing windows with baseball bats.”
I walk home with Dad in silence. Bad silence. I don’t tell him that there’s a wolf running around on the edge of town. I’m not going to tell anyone, not even Virgil or Eloise. I figure a lone wolf is a long way from being the most dangerous thing around town these days.
Virgil says the question is not who but why someone is hurting people to get rid of the wolves. I don’t know if that’s true. I think whoever wrecked Mr. Muir’s store, as if I didn’t know, is about as thoughtful as a guy with a machine gun in a Taco Bell. But I guess if I want to know who, I’m going to have to ask why first.
Civil discourse? I might need to do a little more research.
It’s almost impossible to change minds. People use wolves for all these other values. The wolves themselves are pretty boring, but the people are fascinating.
Ed Bangs, Gray Wolf Recovery Coordinator,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
THE BUCK STOPS HERE
I TALK TO myself for five minutes before I make the phone call. This is what homework can lead to. Calling Federal employees.
I look at my notes that I’ve gathered from the Internet and the four other phone calls I have made so far. I’m about to call Ted Buck, the coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C.: Mr. Walks-Softly-and-Carries-a-Big-Federal-Stick. He’s famous for saying he doesn’t give a shit about whether the wolves stay or go or anything else for that matter. On the other hand, he drives all over Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho trying to help people and wildlife get along. Everyone I’ve talked to says he’s the man to call.
I remind myself not to talk like I just sucked helium. I dial slowly.
“Ted Buck.”
He answers his own phone? “Oh, hi, Mr. Buck.”
“May I help you?” His voice is low, spare, and impatient. He sounds like a rancher. This is funny because he’s the man ranchers love to hate.
My brain sputters.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“May I help you?”
“Yes.” I look at my notes again, grasping for anything to fill my empty mouth. “I am just wondering if . . . I’m calling because . . .”
“Honey, have you got a question? Because I’m getting a cramp just listening to you spin your wheels.”
“Yes. I do have a question,” I say as much to myself as to him. “I am a resident of West End, Montana. I’m calling to ask about a public meeting. About the wolves and the referendum.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. What can I tell you?”
“Can you come here?”
“You want a meeting, huh?”
“I read about the one you had in Cody, and I think we need one here in West End.”
“Let’s back up a half step. Would you mind telling me who I’m talking to?”